BRICS plan for alternate internet by 2015 draws enthusiastic response

BRICS Cable is an important strategic project for immense social and economic benefits to all member countries. Source: Reuters

An ambitious project to provide an alternative internet for the members of this increasingly powerful grouping is largely being seen as a positive development by members of the intelligentsia.

BRICS has a big surprise in store for the United States and
the rest of the world. The grouping plans to launch an alternative Internet in
2015, according to Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. A 34,000-kilometre cable
(a two fibre pair with a 12.8 Tbit/s capacity) will run from Vladivostok, Russia
to Fortaleza, Brazil, via Shantou, China, Chennai, India and Cape Town, South
Africa. The project is currently in its final phase of implementation.

REX asks members of
the intelligentsia whether such an alternative is necessary and whether it can
be useful

Kirill Myamlin, Publicist

“Dilma Rousseff took this historical step in the wake of
Snowden’s revelations about espionage activities by the National Security
Agency. The NSA allegedly spied on Brazilian oil company Petrobras by tapping
into its communications channel. The NSA was also reported to have been spying
on Rousseff herself and other Brazilian users, who entrusted their personal
data to American Internet giants, such as Facebook and Google.

No provocations and attempts to have new revolutionary ‘Spring’
or ‘colour’ revolutions in the Middle East, Russia or Brazil will ever be able
to prevent installation of the new cable.

American ‘experts’ call the decision by the Brazilian leader
to divorce from the US-centric Internet ‘potentially dangerous,’ as it could be
the first step towards fragmentation of the global network, an alternative that
would be created with minimum interference from governments and with no
interference from the US government whatsoever.”

Michael Dorfman, writer (New York)

“They haven’t been paying too much attention to this report
in America, unlike the news about the Soviet Sputnik, which scared the United
States back in the day.

Any alternative would be a positive thing. The more choice
you have, the better. Yet no-one can say for sure whether this new Internet
will be safer than its US counterpart and will be able to protect the rights of
regular users, including the privacy of personal data and free access to
resources, more effectively.

Sooner or later, we’ll have a multi-polar world and the US
will lose its monopolies not only on the Internet but also the financial and
military ones. This won’t come as a surprise, but will take 25 or 30 years.

Yet there is another thing impeding efforts to do away with
the US monopoly. The USSR was once regarded as the second motherland for all
workers, whereas America is the second motherland for the neo-liberal,
free-market corporate and bureaucratic elites of the entire world: America is
their protector and patron. They only need to play by its rules to enjoy its
patronage, have their money hidden here, have their children taught and
employed here, and have a safe haven here once they retire”

Yury Yuryev, Political
engineer

Related:

“It is worth trying this alternative because, despite the
antitrust regulations, the US-centric Internet has essentially become a
monopoly enabling the authorities to control users’ rights and privileges.
However many alternatives you have, there will always be someone interested in
them as long as they wish to keep their data from the US authorities and
corporations. Furthermore, the entire planet is ‘pegged’ to the US
technological base and, in order to create an alternative one, new channels are
called for.”

“This means that Snowden’s revelations didn’t really come as
a wake-up call to any of the major states. They must have been aware that the
US intelligence service would eventually break into the American network
companies. Yet any action will sooner or later cause a reaction, especially
such impertinent actions as those of the United States.”

Kirill Svetitsky, Journalist and psychologist

“I guess the translators of the article ‘The BRICS
Independent Internet Cable: In Defiance of the US-Centric Internet’ have
misinterpreted the facts. The article is on the BRICS’s own Internet cable,
rather than an alternative Internet project.”